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The W(h)it and Wisdom of Mr Haydn
12th May 2002
Ian Carpenter & Mark Knight
The
'World' of magic is in reality a quite small and - despite the continuing
efforts of the 'MM' - closed community. News travels fast, ideas circulate at
the speed of a click, and both can rapidly become stale. Wonderfully refreshing
then, to encounter a magician of comprehensive, worldwide experience ranging
over decades, steeped in the traditions surrounding our craft - who has some
really fresh and insightful things to say.
Whit Haydn is a class act. He has worked everywhere from windy London
streetcorners to Cunard staterooms, and absorbed pretty much all the knowhow
going, in the process. From magicians, yes, but also from hustlers, shysters,
scam merchants and conmen the world over. More than once a winner of the Magic
Castle's Stage AND Closeup competitions, he has nothing that he needs to prove,
in terms of professional accomplishments. On his own admission, the whole
marketing side of the business leaves him somewhat cold, or otherwise we would
probably have heard a lot more about him!
As our interview progressed, it became clear that he has provided ideas to more
than a few well-known names along the way - not always 'officially'. Names who
are sometimes generous with credit, but not cash - and sometimes not even that.
Whit was generous with his time and information, as we chatted in the sun (yes -
really) outside the Weston Winter Gardens, during a well-earned break between
his various appearances at the Bristol DOM. We began by asking the peripatetic
Mr H where he was 'from'...
"I live in LA now, but I'm originally from Tennessee. This accent (a kind of New
York-ish generalised 'American' one) is an affectation, but my natural 'country
boy' one was useful for 3-card monte, especially in New York!"
(Here he goes into a highly amusing vignette of the 'aw-shucks' Hick from the
Sticks - taking the supposedly street smart Nooyawkers for everything they've
got.)
MEALTICKET
"Back then, or even now, you couldn't just walk up to someone in New York and
say 'Hey - you wanna see something?'! You'd get 'Yeah, I'll show ya something
pal!' (use your imagination here). Or even 'do you want to see some magic?'
People weren't interested. Back in the 60's especially, ESP was really big so I
would go up to people in a bar and say I was doing an ESP Survey. That got them
all involved right away - they thought I was a college student, and I would go
into my Out of This World, and other ESP routines, finishing up by thanking them
and asking if they could spare any change. I always got a good tip!"
In the 70's, Whit worked in London doing street magic, but found he was getting
- arrested!
"The police would take me down to the local precinct house (that's - Copshop)
and give me a talking to. They said 'It's an offence to the Queen'. I said -
'She hasn't even seen the show!'
It was none other than the legendary Ken Brooke who then stepped in, to explain
to a young Whit how to avoid getting his collar felt:
"Ken really helped a lot. He told me that it wasn't legal to work unless you
were a disabled veteran, so I needed to find one to team up with. I found this
one man band from Ireland, Johnny Magoo, who worked in Earls Court, showed him
some tricks and he said hey, you're pretty good. So he would do his music and
draw a crowd, then tell them to stay and watch some magic from his 'son'!"
Whit went on to describe how he believes some street magicians stay working the
streets for too long, and then don't really know how to adapt to work elsewhere,
even if they are highly skilled performers. So the obvious next question was,
how did HE make that transition..?
"I got a job in an amusement park. They had seen me work and I was booked to do
a half hour show, twelve times a day, seven days a week! When I left, Lance
Burton took over - doing his doves. That's where he really honed that act. He
also brought in Mac King because the doves was only a 15 minute act and so Mac
filled the other 15."
Even now though, Whit retains the mindset of the street performer: it was there
he learned, in the front line, how to draw and keep a crowd.
"I want to kill as much time with one routine as possible. People are held
spellbound but they are going to leave, the first chance they get. Even in a
theater I am thinking, "The audience is just going to walk off". I've seen this
kind of thing - "
He demonstrates a performer turning around during his applause after say, a card
trick, to retrieve a glass for the next effect. Big mistake! The tyro turns back
to find -
"They're gone! You should be taking out the glass while you're taking the
applause, never breaking eye contact, going into "Ever seen a Tribble?"
(Yup, it's a real line he uses a lot. Well - have you?)
Another Masterclass Moment - with, no doubt, the brilliant psychological subtext
of suggesting a refill, from your humble scribes. (Yes, it worked - <sigh>...).
We continued with some discussion of :
MASTER MAGICIANS
"Vernon was the best thing that ever happened to magic. He wasn't really a great
performer - he was a good performer, but more of an ideas man. When I saw him at
the Magic Castle doing 3 card monte it changed an awful lot of my approach for
me. He did it in this polite, gentlemanly way, not aggressive and cocky. He
later told me that my idea for the linking rings routine was the first genuinely
new comedy idea he'd seen in years, that I should write it up - it could be
adapted to cards, ropes, anything. I never did it but I've seen the idea used by
a lot of people."
(Whit's wonderful routine, featured later in the DOM evening show - and
available on video - has a spectator supposedly copying him, and repeatedly uses
the gag of looking away when all the impossible stuff is being done, then
looking back once it's 'completed' by both of them - ie when he's got back to
where the spectator started.)
"The Pendragons are my daughter's Godparents. Jonathan is a great friend, very
intense about his art, and can't understand anyone who isn't. Their substitution
trunk is the only one I enjoy. In their hands, Interlude becomes a man giving
birth to a woman. They plumb the emotional depths of their illusions, in the way
no-one else does."
"David Blaine reminds us how good the classics of magic are. As magicians we
tend to shy away from stuff like the ashes on the arm, or rising card, because
they're so familiar - but these are GREAT tricks. I make my living off the
classics of magic: in my own stage act all I do is that stuff: the Sucker Egg,
Cut and restored rope, Linking Rings."
"Tommy Cooper was a wonderful actor. Magicians don't understand what an actor is:
they think it means a coarse actor and imitate that. A good actor playing the
part of a magician would ask himself, 'What if when I were a kid, I found I
really could do magic a bit, but nothing powerful or big. Then as I grew up I
learnt some skills to create the illusion of more power, but I was proud of them
anyway because of the skill? Then when I was doing magic as an adult, I would
know that it was skill, but at the back of my mind also know I could always do
real magic if I had to.' They need to ask themselves questions - why do you want
to show this stuff?"
MERRIE MELODIES
So - what are Whit's own 'mental models' as he performs?
"For close up, I use Bugs Bunny as a model. (!?!) He was the Great Manipulator.
He hooked you and enjoyed manipulating you just for the fun of it. Elmer Fudd
could have just walked away, but he never did. On stage, I am a Substitute
Teacher, with an unruly class: I WANT to be put-upon. I'm trying to explain the
magic to them but really I haven't got a clue."
MASTERCLASS & MONTE
"In the 90's I met Chef Anton, who is now my business partner. He is the
American Trick Shot Pool champion, and he wanted me to instruct him in con
games, asking him about the 3-shell game. I told him I had some pretty cool
moves worked out when I used to do it back in the 70's. He asked me to show him
but I'd really forgotten pretty much all of it. Then soon afterwards my copy of
Bobo fell off the shelves at home and all these pages of drawings and arrows
fell out: they were my old notes for the shellgame! I still couldn't remember,
but he said let's get together and figure them out - so we did."
This all eventually gave birth to the School For Scoundrels, which the two of
them have now been invited to run yearly at the Magic Castle. Acolytes get the
inner sanctum lowdown on all those classic street scams. Which might sound to
some like a sideroad, way off the Main Magical Motorway; but Whit couldn't
disagree more:
"The real secret of con games, is that they are a better 'Model' for magicians
than gamblers. A gambler wants to go unnoticed, so develops perfect, hidden
moves. I think there can be too much emphasis on this - it doesn't HOOK the
audience. John Ramsay used to flash a supposed load, show that he hadn't loaded
anything - and THEN load it! It's the Slydini thing of suggesting a method, then
taking it away. Great performers gets the audience enthused, they get them into
it, get them to buy into a premise. The audience has to be assigned a role -
they love that. They don't like to see blatant power. I see it like a rope, with
you holding one end and the audience the other. Some magicians hold it too
tight, pull all the time. You have to let the audience pull too, sometimes."
Finally, with all this veteran skulduggery at his command, perhaps it's no
surprise that Whit Remains unimpressed by
MODERN METHODS
"Videos - I can't watch 'em! I was reviewing videos for six months for Genii,
but I couldn't do it any more. I like to learn from books: I'm what McLuhan
called a P.O.B.: a 'Print-Oriented-B*&%$~*#*!"
We are also all the beneficiaries of this affection for the printed word: watch
this (cyber)space for upcoming reviews of his recent publications: Street Magic,
The Chicago Surprise, and School For Scoundrels 'Notes' (aka Encyclopaedias) on
The 3-Card Monte and Fast & Loose. Incidentally, before Whit had to go and give
his next performance, we were treated to an impromptu demonstration of the
'real' Monte. The moves were all scarily indetectable, but even more interesting
was his elaboration of the highly organised mobs who pull this con. In the end
it turns out to be much more about theatre and psychology than about flawless
sleights. A bit like, um - Magic, really.
© Ian Carpenter & Mark Knight, 2002